'Dredd 3D' not as dreadful as expected

Actually, I didn't expect Dredd to be dreadful, although I'm honestly not surprised its box office has been, well... exactly that.

Dead or alive... wait, this isn't "Robocop".  Or is it?

So, yeah,  I am now one of the dozens of people who went to see Pete Travis' Dredd 3D (albeit in 2D) in theaters. The film opened this last Friday, and made a pathetic $6.3 million at the US box office over the weekend, and isn’t likely to make enough to cover the cost of its reported $45 million budget. Clearly, no one went to see it. Which is a shame, because Dredd is actually, sort of unbelievably, very decent—and will probably go down as a better Robocop movie than the dreaded reboot of that franchise due in 2013.

Tales from the Trolley, and other terrible things

September 25, 2012

Out there, somewhere, there’s a doppelganger for us all. Or so some say, anyway.

A twin. A double. A real life, maybe mirror-universe, copy.

Today, I saw one. Not of myself, or anyone I actually know. But, on the trolley to San Diego State, I met—or was vaguely near—what can only be described as the spitting, although perhaps inverse, image of Honey Boo Boo Chile and her maw-maw June.

The almost-June was a large, large woman, who could barely fit in the hard plastic seat she was awkwardly trying to sit in. She was a brunette, and appeared as classless and white-trashy as Boo Boo’s slightly fairer-haired momma.

The woman sat; dressed in a sleeveless top, with one black bra strap noticeably slid halfway down her thick arm, not a care in the world.

The little girl, blonde as Boo Boo, and as hyper too, greedily drank from a 7-Eleven Big Gulp. I can only assume the “go-go juice” mixture in that cup was her breakfast, as it was around 8:00 in the morning. A breakfast of champions, indeed. Certain beauty pageant champs, at least.

I noticed all this as I entered the trolley car at the Morena station. The doors had only just closed when the mother of Boo Boo’s twin bellowed, in the direction of someone sitting a few rows away, “Maria! Wa’chu doin’, gurl, come ere” in an almost comically affected accent that told me one thing immediately: she was from San Diego’s own dirty South, Klan—I’m sorry, San—tee.

An exaggerated hand movement, beckoning the slightly-Mexican woman seemingly named Maria to sit immediately beside her, further accentuated Big Momma’s ghetto cattle call and caused her flabby arm-parts to jiggle and jostle more than they already were from the natural swaying of the carriage.

As the two friends took up a conversation, I mostly tuned out. For I had my earbuds in, you see. And I didn’t have a clue what was about to be said.

But I still heard bits and pieces here and there. While Boo Boo drank and frequently flipped into seat-shimmying fidgets of caffeine-fueled attention deficit hyperactivity, her very own momma June described their plan for the day.

The details are not important, but the gist of it seemed to be that they were going to the doctor.

Why?

“Oh, you know, the usual,” the momma-double said coolly.

But not the usual, because—and I kid you not—she relayed that only one of this massive, wheezing woman’s lungs actually worked, and she had also recently had a mild heart attack.

It became quite difficult to hear what they were talking about for a few stops.

Between Fenton Parkway—the stop just before Qualcomm Stadium—and Grantville—the trolley stop in the sky, just before the San Diego State University transit center—I blasted my music, not bothering to stain my ears to hear their horrible, terrible, and surely no good things that would ruin my day.

A day already tainted by stumbling across Gotye’s “Somebody That I Used to Know” on the car radio that morning. Somebodyyyyy

But, before I departed and left these truly terrifying TV caricatures come to life, and as we passed into the SDSU tunnel, I did hear this one final, wonderful, tidbit, loud and clear.

“Oh, he was gonna get life, but they got it down to 9 years. He’ll be out soon.”

It seems—at least from what I gathered in the final, frenzied, moments I gleaned as much as I possibly could in my confused state, before the train stopped at SDSU—that Boo Boo’s brother, whom the almost-Mexican used to date, was a convicted felon. And whatever he did was horrible enough for Life in Prison to be an option at some point.

“That’s good,” said Maria, “it’ll be nice to see him then.”

I’m actually glad I had to get out of there as fast as I could, and hop-along to my early morning class.

My head was spinning from the stink of white trash. And it might’ve exploded had I heard any more.

­­­

On the Devolution of M. Night Shyamalan and the Downward Spiral of his Career

Against my better judgment I found myself revisiting “Signs” on blu-ray last night, and it made me realize… I really, really like that movie until its truly terrible ending. Then “Signs”  retrospectively sucks. Kind of like M. Night Shyamalan’s career. Don’t believe me? Let's take a look.

What the fuck happened to my career?

“Praying with Anger” (1992) and “Wide Awake” (1998)

No one has seen these movies. And if you have, you didn’t know they were written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. No you didn’t. Stop lying.

“The Sixth Sense” (1999) ****

A stirring, atmospheric, tale of a troubled boy named Cole Sear (Haley Joel Osment). Cole sees dead people, and with the help of a child psychologist (Bruce Willis), finally realizes that his curse is actually a gift, with which he can help the dead move on to the afterlife. Also, surprise, Bruce Willis was dead the entire time, but that’s not really important. That’s just a  minor plot twist to tie up loose ends—a necessary and neat period on what would otherwise be an open, unpunctuated, sentence, if you will. The distinctive camerawork by Tak Fujimoto, Bernard Herman-like score from James Newton Howard, and blink-and-you might miss it cameo by M. Night as a doctor, are nice Hitchcockian touches in homage to the man who was this filmmaker’s most obvious, and greatest, influence—more importantly, they also fit the thriller theme, and dark but not ominous tone and atmosphere of the picture. “The Sixth Sense” was nominated for six Academy Awards and made almost $700 million at the worldwide box office, off of a $40 million budget, to become one of the most successful films of all time. Quite the feat for a 29 year old filmmaker. 

You. Are. A. Toy. I mean, a super hero. Motherfucka.

“Unbreakable” (2000) ****

Using his overnight success to make a film he always wanted, Shyamalan crafted this original story—a comic book movie not based on any actual comic—about a man who cannot die (Bruce Willis) and the comic book dealer/aficionado (Samuel L. Jackson) that is convinced the other is destined to be a genuine, true-life, super-hero. Ultimately, the “Shyamalan twist” at the end of the film is not a twist at all—rather, the reveal that Jackson’s character, who has a rare bone disease that leaves him potentially a literal shattered-man, is actually a super-villain in the making makes complete, logical, narrative and thematic sense. The two men are absolutely perfect antithetical foils of each other. Was anyone actually surprised by the way this one ended? M. Night continues to homage Hitchcock, again with camerawork, the score, and his own quick cameo as a drug dealer, but it’s also very pulp-comic book-y and probably the least imitation-Hitch of his early films. While Shyamalan originally planned sequels, those movies remain un-filmed as “Unbreakable” was not a runaway critical or commercial success. At a cost of $75 million, the film made only $95 million in the US (and a total of $248 million worldwide), and was deemed a bomb by bosses at Touchstone/Disney. Critics denounced the film for its “anti-climatic” ending, not realizing the significance of the open-ended finale to the overall “origins story” arc the film used in order to tell its tale. Unfortunately, the film missed the super-hero bandwagon by two years, arriving too early to capitalize on the whole “Spider-Man”, origins story, thing. It’s a shame, because this is my favorite Shyamalan film. Sequels would've been badass. More badass than Samuel L. Jackson in pretty much anything he's ever been in. Quite the feat considering his badassness.

A sign of the terrible movies to come.
But not more bad puns. I promise.

“Signs” (2002) ***

In my opinion, the downward trajectory of Shyamalan’s career begins said decent in the last five minutes of this movie, when what was previously a purposefully slow-paced “out of this world” chiller jumps the shark—or more accurately, assassinates the alien with a glass of water. Ostensibly, “Signs” is the story of a faithless former preacher (Mel Gibson) who recently lost his wife in a car accident, as he struggles to raise his children with his brother (Joaquin Phoenix) on their farm. What it actually is, is a coded remake of H.G. Wells' “War of the Worlds”, only, instead of the original ending where the aliens are undone by evolution and the lack of a natural immunity to germs, they die of an allergy to water. Which is fucking stupid, plain and simple. Why the hell would aliens—who’ve mastered Interstellar space travel, mind you—land on a planet that is primarily covered with the thing that kills them? That they've never come in contact with germs is kind of the point of "War of the Worlds", so their ignorance is acceptable. But they'd have to be pretty clued in on the fact that their arch-nemesis is the basic building block of life. Are they so desperate that they’d actually take the chance of essentially committing possible suicide by coming to the blue planet? Maybe. But that’s dumb if true, and Shyamalan doesn't even bother to address that possibility. He just uses the water-allergy angle as his way to surprise the audience. 

I have a theory: see below

I’m convinced that the “twist” at the end of the film is there only because it subverts the expectations of a “War of the Worlds” ending. More to the point, I think that Shyamalan was certain the reason “The Sixth Sense” was a success, and “Unbreakable” was not, is because everyone was so shocked by the reveal that Bruce Willis was dead the entire time. Which was genuinely shocking, but not the thing that made the film great. The twist became the thing then. Unfortunately, unlike the flashback-heavy reveal at the end of “Sense”, which pulls everything into greater focus following a sort of circular logic, “Signs” comes apart when it tries to force all the foreshadowed mentions of water and baseball down the viewers throat. The Hitchcockian flairs begin to become  just cockian; the camerawork and editing begins to mesh the showiness of Hitchcock and Spielberg into a horrifically pretentious mashup of fluid visual trickery, Newton Howard’s score sounds basically like a bunch of unused Hermann cues, and Shyamalan begins to overstay his welcome by writing himself into the plot as a central figure. That’s not to say that “Signs” is a bad movie. I quite like the first… well, all of it, until the “swing away, Merrill” scene, basically. It’s a creepy, convincing, atmospheric alien movie about a family, played by great actors giving excellent performances. At least, until the end, when it kind of shits all over everything and reveals that nope, it was actually just about aliens with water allergies the entire time—fuck Mel Gibson and his family. They don't matter. It's the twist that matters. 

All those twists--I have no idea what I'm seeing anymore.
Also,  I literally can't see it.
Because I'm supposed to be blind. 

“The Village” (2004) ** 1/2

Following that flawed logic, “The Village” is a movie built on nothing but twists. I still think it’s pretty okay anyway, mostly because I don’t think the twists are really twists at all. But M. Night Shyamalan certainly thought they were when he made the film. The twists are layered; layer upon layer. An old-timey New England village—populated by Ron Howard’s (not actually blind) daughter, fake-retarded Adrien Brody, William Hurt and a handful of other academy award winning actors—is haunted by creepy monsters, except the monsters are just fabrications of William Hurt as a means to keep peace amongst the villagers, except the monsters ARE real, except that was really fake-retarded Brody in one of Hurt’s costumes, except, actually, that wasn’t even an old timey village at all, but really the result of a creepy cult—a bunch of rich people who got together and built a place where they’d raise their children to think it was the simpler olden days so they could be protected from the outside world.

I called the “actually a cult” thing after watching the trailer before the film even hit theaters. Like “Unbreakable”, I think all the twists and turns the narrative takes are pretty obvious, possibly even understandably logical (or at least predictable) from a storytelling standpoint. The film has an errie production design and evokative cinematography, a moody original score by James Newton Howard and is overall less ‘cockian—Hitch or otherwise, than Shyamalan's previous effort. Night’s back in the cameo role (although he is in the climax, and is seen only from a reflection, and does spell out the final twist in his dialog, which is kind of ultra-egotistical; the know it all, does it all, douche). Doesn’t change the fact that the film is a Matryoshka doll of plot reversals—a gimmick inside a gimmick inside a gimmick, inside a monster costume behind a tall wall. This isn’t a case where the narrative is ostensibly about something else; “The Village” exists simply to exploit twist after twist. Nothing else. So, it's slightly worse than “Signs” in the end.

Here's a picture of Paul Giamatti from "Sideways",
'cause, seriously, fuck Shyamalan's terrible movie.

“Lady in the Water” (2006) *

M. Night Shyamalan stars as himself, in a plot where Paul Giamatti and Ron Howard’s daughter (who isn’t blind this time) constantly interrupt his writing by re-enacting a warped version of Disney’s “Little Mermaid” or something. Bryce Dallas Howard plays a character named Story, because, remember, Shyamalan, the actor/director/writer, plays an author in this film. Real deep. Shit. That's almost a bad pun, and I promised no more of those.

Of some interest is that this was the first Shyamalan film not produced or distributed by the Walt Disney Company or one of its subsidiaries. The director reportedly took the project to Warner Bros. after citing creative differences with the then-current Disney regime; honestly, they probably told him what a turd his script was.

The twist is that M. Night Shyamalan got you to pay to see this movie. Or not. The film failed to make back its $75 million budget, even accounting for worldwide ticket sales. 

“The Happening” (2008) * 1/2

In Shyamalan's first foray into the R-rated realm, Marky Mark and Zombie Deschanel play two people in a world where other people suddenly feel the urge to kill themselves in the most overly elaborate ways imaginable whenever it gets really windy. The twist is that the movie is titled “The Happening”, yet nothing ever happens. The double twist is that the movie isn’t “Signs”, despite a near identical opening title sequence and an actually-identical score from James Newton Howard. Triple twist, Shyamalan really did get everyone to pay to see this one—it made $163 million worldwide, and became one of the top grossing R-rated films of the later 2000s. Ha, jokes on those of us who did go and see it I guess. Quadruple twist: although it was marketed as a mystery/horror film, "The Happening" is actually a hilarious comedy; M. Night didn't intend it to be, but it is. Also, hotdogs. And, “What? No!”, to eyein’ that old lady’s lemon drink.

Being asked to believe Mark Walberg as a science teacher is one of the least unbelievable or problematic things about "The Happening". Let that sink in for a second.

Should'a been called
"The Last Shyamalan (Movie)"

“The Last Airbender” (2010) [no stars]

In this Bizarro-world adaptation of a children’s television series for Nickelodeon, M. Night Shyamalan remakes David Lynch’s “Dune”, replete with disconnected voiceover narration. Or something. One thing’s for certain: he didn’t try and follow the original “Avatar: The Last Airbender” source material.

Twist—the complete mess of a movie had a budget of $150 million and was not only made, but released in theaters without being taken away from Shyamalan and forced into reshoots by the studio. Double, triple, quadruple, centuple twist in the 8^th dimension: the poorly post-converted, CGI-heavy, film had a 3D transfer that more closely resembled 2D, a horribly blurry 2D transfer that would’ve looked better in 1D, and characters without any depth at all!

Shyamalan, you goddamn genius, that was the greatest twist of them all! That, or tricking people into thinking you had talent in the first place. Wow. That shit's better than finding out Bruce Willis was a dead superhero, allergic to water and wind (bending), and totally not a creepy mermaid monster, the entire time.